VR Playhouse is at Sundance – Days 2 & 3: Demo Derby!

Days 2 and 3 were all about the demo. We planned to go big at the VR Fest event on Sunday, bringing with us an HTC Vive, complete with some new sample content we banged out in a week; an Oculus showing “The Surrogate,” a narrative piece we helped develop that combines CG with 360 video; and, of course, a Gear stocked with a bunch of our work from the last year and a half. Now that means two computers, two monitors, 3 headsets, a tracking system, cables galore, our big flashy sign and so on and so forth. And we took all this on a plane, which automatically means something or somethings is bound to be screwed up when you arrive at your final destination.

So Saturday became a day of troubleshooting. We went to the friendly neighborhood Best Buy twice. Various members of the VR Playhouse team banged their heads against various walls throughout the day. Tequila eventually made an appearance. It was all worth it though, because we had an amazing Sunday. It was a long Sunday, to be sure; roughly 13 or so hours of demonstrating our experiences to the frenzied hordes at Sundance, but we met great folk, hung out with great friends, schmoozed our little butts off and converted a lot of people to the church of VR.